As football playoffs last month whipped fans to a fever pitch for the forthcoming Super Bowl 50, the NFL decided to look back. As part of the half-century anniversary of the big game, the league dug through its film archives to pull together a “new” broadcast of its first-ever championship game, spliced together from existing sources. The grainy footage of the Kansas City Chiefs and the Green Bay Packers battling in the inaugural Super Bowl looks its age, a slow, plodding Super 8 film compared to today’s hi-def, camera-hopping coverage. Pregame entertainment on January 15, 1967, at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum included a marching band performance and a pair of guys wearing futuristic jetpacks circling the arena.
Introducing the Stadium of the Future, Where Technology Is King
At the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, which opens in March, two night-club-type areas will cantilever out over center court.
The absurdity of two men hovering above the gridiron in white flight suits showed the leaps we’ve made in game day entertainment and, by giving the cameras an excuse to pan over the crowd, demonstrated just how much the stadium experience has changed in a half century.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
